


Unspoken (In The Dark)

by Anonymous



Category: Cal Leandros - Rob Thurman
Genre: Angst, Incest, M/M, PWP, Reincarnation, Series Spoilers, dubcon but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:55:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13039221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: An AU Cal/Niko PWP angstfest set during Nevermore, canon compliant save for the added sex and grief and angst. Not actually dubcon.





	Unspoken (In The Dark)

**Author's Note:**

> Tagged for dubcon because consent is never verbally discussed, though it is not dubcon. Cal is dumb and goes off in a tizzy worrying about it. Do as we say, not as we do, kids, always discuss consent with your partners!
> 
> [“Breakin’,” All American Rejects](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NDa-jjogwBM)  
>  _Hold on tight_  
>  _Wrap your arms around me 'till your knuckles are burning white_  
>  _All your tears_  
>  _Couldn't match the bitter taste of all these wasted years_
> 
> [“Another Heart Calls,” All American Rejects](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bzDvRT6liXQ)  
>  _What can I do?_  
>  _Say it's true_  
>  _Or everything that matters breaks in two_  
>  _Say it's true_  
>  _I'll never ask for anyone but you_

It started with me, sometime after coming back from Tumulus. All that trauma and catapulted straight into puberty, well, for a while sharing a bed was fine because I was traumatized stupid and definitely not right in the head anymore. (If I’d ever been, I’m really not sure on that front.) Somewhere before we hit New York, it started being a little less fine. In fact it started getting awkward, because as I eased into being a functional human being again, sleeping next to a warm body didn’t just keep the nightmares away. It led to some other interesting dreams.

Pretty graphic dreams.

Actually awkward doesn’t really begin to cover it when you wake up from a sex dream humping your older brother. Your older brother who practically raised you from a baby.

Yeah, it got weird, and that was my fault. As usual, I fucked up my brother’s life and any chance of being normal.

I think Niko would try to tell me differently, because he always did about everything else, but he’s not here to say it anymore. At least, not _my_ Niko. This younger version, well, he’d probably try to say it anyway, but I’m sure as hell not about to mention it to him.

Things are already damned weird enough without adding fucking _incest_ to this whole time-travelling clusterfuck.

Robin, though, he did try to tell me that I hadn’t ruined anything. But Robin’s views on sex are probably not the best place to get any comfort. He says it’s all survivor’s guilt. I’m not so sure but hearing it did make me feel a little better.

Doesn’t mean I’m not still hanging on by threads and trying to ignore the urge to kiss the living daylights out of the younger version of my brother, but my life has been fucked from the beginning, I guess. Sucks to be me.

I almost want to ask the younger version of me, but that wouldn’t end well, we’re at eachother’s throats to start with.

Plus, there’s the whole ‘never actually talked about it’ thing.

Niko and I never really said a fucking word about it, not to anyone else or eachother. Now that sounds damn weird but it’s the truth. We just went on with our lives every day. Most nights, too. It was just some nights, I’d go crawl into Niko’s bed and...well, I’m still not really sure how to name it, myself. Calling it a ‘fuck’ isn’t right, but it definitely wasn’t ‘making love’ either. I’m not really sure it was actually sex at all? Except towards the end there, it got pretty close. Getting eachother off, maybe, that’s about the closest thing, except it’s not right either. Hell if I know, I never bothered to label it, and I’m just trying to now because I’m trying to make sense of it all. Honestly, in the daylight, it doesn’t make any fucking sense, and that’s probably why we never talked about it.

That and how neither of us were actually attracted to guys, and neither of us went around making public displays of affection.

It was just...something that happened, but instead of it just happening once and never again (which would have been weird enough but not unheard of I guess), we kept doing it, off and on, long stretches of normal inbetween times.

Maybe we were both just fucked up. But I never asked, so I guess I’ll never know, and I really regret that.

I have a lot of regrets right now.

I’m not looking to add onto them, but the other night when the younger Niko woke me up to keep me from having a nightmare/flashback combo, it was all I could do not to push him back against the wall and kiss him.

Fuck my life, just really.

* * *

 

The first time, it was an accident and I was half-asleep. I woke up halfway, right on the edge of coming, the dreaming sense of hands on my skin and lips at my throat. I instinctively pressed closer to the warm body next to me: in a dizzy sleepy spiral I half-registered Niko on his side and me leaning up close against his back, my nose against the nape of his neck and my hips snugged against his. A single restless roll of my hips took me over the edge and I shivered through the orgasm, mind full of nothing but the dream and the pleasure. The feeling ebbed off and the sleepy afterglow was really nice...right up until I realized I had my lips against Niko’s neck and semen cooling on my hip.

You can bet I rolled over damned fast and prayed he’d slept through that, holy fuck.

Of course, nothing was said, I convinced myself he’d been asleep, and nothing else happened, for a while. We moved across the country, trying to stay ahead of the Auphe, me trying to figure out how to actually be human again, be what Niko so faithfully believed I could be.

It was the second time that things started to get a little off the rails. Almost same verse as the first, some dingy hotel, a heated dream, and waking up just before I actually got off. Waking up pressed close to Niko’s back, fingers tangled in his T-shirt, my breath hot against his skin, and my aching boner snug against his ass. I’ve never been a fast waker, especially when I don’t _want_ to wake up. For a hazy moment I snuggled closer, nuzzling my face into the curve of the neck before me, hips hitching instinctively.

Niko’s breath catching hit my brain at the exact moment orgasm did, and let me tell you, that was one hell of a mood killer, realizing _he was awake_ and I’d just rubbed one out against his ass.

Still one quarter asleep and completely horrified, I froze for one long moment in the darkness before I managed to roll over, putting an inch of space between us on the narrow hotel mattress and hoping like hell Niko wouldn’t say a word. I was mortified but a small part of my brain kept replaying that little catch of breath.

A tiny stutter. For most people it meant nothing. A startled reaction.

Niko didn’t do startled. He didn’t do big reactions, either. Every mood, every response was controlled, reined down to nuanced shifts of expression, subtle cues no stranger could hope to interpret. So that momentary hitch in his breathing? Was actually something pretty damned big, and I was too busy trying not to flip my shit in embarrassment to try to decipher it. At least….not until later.

Not until I was half asleep again and heard a sound that was fairly familiar. Sleepy, I couldn’t figure out what it was, and dropped off and slept like the dead.

When I woke up again, Niko was already up and in the shower. It took me until I was awake and took a deep breath to remember the odd noise.

I have a super sense of smell. I can give any mutt off the street a run for its money, picking up different scents. So while the smell of musk wouldn’t have tipped anyone else off, it was easy for me to tell that I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten off last night in the sheets.

Now _that_ flipped all of last night on its head and after one mindblown moment to consider _what the fuck_ I shut the whole train of thought down and packed it up.

I didn’t think about it for a whole damned week.

You know how they say third time’s the charm?

Well, it wasn’t quite. But it was the real start, when things got hopelessly tangled.

This time I wasn’t actually all the way asleep. I was kind of awake, trying to fall asleep and not have screaming nightmares about the Auphe. So, naturally, being a red-blooded male in the hormonal throes of being eighteen, my sleepy brain decided porn was the best defense against preventing bad dreams. (Which it isn’t, actually, you can get some seriously fucked up porn nightmares, but that’s a different story.) Lying back-to-back with Niko, facing the wall, my eyes closed and images of naked boobs prancing through my head.

All good stuff. Until my brain decided to interject a single memory into my imagined soundtrack.

That single catch of breath.

Ever been both _really_ turned on but at the same time almost turned off by something? Yeah, that was me right then. Because on the one hand, no, that was my _brother_ and he and sex didn’t belong in the same paragraph. ….but on the other hand, the knowledge that the little stutter had been a direct response to my lips grazing over the back of his neck was somehow incredibly hot.

Now, after Charm and Delilah, I happen to know that wringing any noise like that from my partner is one hell of a fucking turn on for me. About on level with naked breasts, which is from zero to hard in sixty seconds.

But back then I didn’t know that, and was really confused for a bit.

What I did know was I was at half-mast and really wanted to actually get off tonight. So I tried going back to various porno scenarios, paused to make sure Niko was still asleep - breathing deep and regular, he _always_ fell asleep faster than I did - and got a hand down my pants. Stroking along good and regular, fingers damp with pre-cum, and again I remembered that little hitch of breath, the smell in the sheets.

By the way, when you’re a teenager and half-asleep and really damn horny, you make really fucking stupid decisions.

I didn’t roll all the way over. Just onto my back, shoulder against Niko’s back, and kept working, teeth gritted against any noise. I was getting good and close, pressure building, and then I turned my head.

I was angled just right and could just touch my lips to the back of Niko’s neck, his braid draped up over the pillow out of the way of either of us rolling over on it in the night. And so I did, the warmth of skin against my parted lips, the smell cheap soap and clean skin and dampness from my breath….and the start of sweat, salt-sharp. I ran my thumb over the head of my cock - God I was so close - and touched the very tip of my tongue to his skin just to taste the sweat.

Niko’s breath didn’t just hitch, it fucking _stuttered_ and his spine stiffened sharply. I came good and hard and laid there for a long moment, half-asleep and sated. My boxers would be dried crusty in the morning but right now I didn’t give a damn and almost nodded off.

I would have, too, except Niko shifted. I made an effort to keep my breathing steady as possible, remembering, wondering...and sure enough, slowly and surreptitiously (he was way more subtle than I could ever be) Niko moved, just a fraction away before he settled again….and the very familiar sound of someone jacking off met my ears, though his body was as still as if he’d been asleep. Honestly, I should have pretended to sleep through the whole thing. It was only polite.

Except when the smell of arousal was thick and his breathing shallow and quick I turned my head again.

From the angle of Niko’s elbow he either had a few fingers or the heel of his hand against his mouth to keep quiet, and I could hear the faint click in his throat that meant he was trying very hard not to make a sound.

I didn’t think about it, I just did it: pressed my mouth against his neck and licked him to taste the sweat beaded there.

I only heard the muffled sound because I was listening for it, as Niko came sharp and hard enough his hips jerked, his iron control and illusion of sleep shattered.

Quickly I rolled into my side, turning my back, and wondered if he’d say anything, as his breathing steadied and slowed again.

He didn’t.

We both laid there awake for a while, but neither of us said a word.

Weeks passed. We swapped between separate beds and sharing one, as the hotels had available as we ran from the Auphe. Sometimes we slept in the car, but it was getting too cold for that to be a good option, especially as we headed north. And it kept happening, on and off, and Niko got to where he stopped even pretending to wait for me to fall asleep before he jerked off. He never touched me, and aside from my lips on his neck and my hand on his chest (I liked feeling his pulse pick up under my palm) I never touched him either. We didn’t talk about it.

When we hit New York, though, we just...quit. Mostly because we started renting apartments and working jobs with different schedules and we had separate rooms. Then Niko had Promise, and for a little while I had Delilah, and life was fucked up and shit happened and we killed monsters. Normal shit in our lives. Nothing kooky about it. I mean, I once wanted a normal picket-fence American life, but now I think it would have bored me too much. Maybe. I don’t actually know, maybe if I was all human I wouldn’t be bored.

No, scratch that, I would be.

It wasn’t until after the fucking episode with amnesia, the Nepenthe spiders and Ammut, that anything happened.

Again, it was me, wondering if those dim nighttime memories were true, not something my brain had cooked up in a moment of hormone-drunk teenagerhood. I wondered, and stared at the ceiling, and remembered that even if we’d had separate beds, sometimes I’d slip into Niko’s bed anyway.

He still had Promise. I wondered if he’d told her about it. I dunno, ‘my little brother used to hump me at night it was weird’ or some shit like that. God, I hoped not.

I remembered how he’d always kept so quiet: not with a hand against his mouth like I’d first thought, but by biting his wrist. I’d never tried to get him to stop, and I wondered if I could. Then I wondered if he did the same thing with Promise and I felt like some kind of dirty creeper. Fuck.

I rolled over in bed and stared at the wall. It wasn’t like I was _attracted_ to Niko, there wasn’t any draw outside the whole actual getting off part. I mean, I’m not going to lie, orgasms are pretty damn great. Getting one with a warm body near, even if it was by my own hand, was also pretty nice. But I jerked off plenty on my own, so I didn’t know why I kept thinking it was a damn good idea to go crawl in Niko’s bed and see if that was still an option. I felt like it shouldn’t be, and probably _wouldn’t_ be. He had an actual love life and was getting laid on a regular basis. Unlike me, who had a homicidal ex and that was it.

I shouldn’t.

I got out of bed anyway.

I made it as far as the doorway of his room before I chickened out. I knew Niko heard me, from the way his breathing changed and how he lifted his head when I stayed still, a hand on the door facing. He was silent for a long moment that stretched out into eternity, before he whispered my name in a low rumbly question.

It was nothing, and I told him that before I made my retreat. Fuck, what was I thinking?

Thinking about the way his breath caught and shuddered, and the thought rode in my brain for two days.

He’d gone to bed and I’d stayed up, sneaking in a little porn. Niko went to bed with the chickens, as they say, and was up with the sun. Me, I liked to sleep late and stay up late. The porn was damn disappointing, really badly done, and I turned it off. I sat on the couch running my hand loosely over my hard-on, and decided I wasn’t going to think about it.

So I didn’t.

I got up and went down the hall to Niko’s room. I stopped at the doorway, like before. The fuck was I doing, really?

Niko stirred and lifted his head. I heard him take a breath, and pause, but he didn’t say anything in the end. He put his head back down.

I crossed the linoleum on socked feet - my feet get cold, Hercules probably had acid reflux, we all have our weaknesses - and slipped under the covers, on the edge of the bed and my back to him. After a moment, he rolled from his stomach to his side, and I shuffled over until our backs touched. I laid there for a few moments, listening to Niko breathe, deep and even and regular, as if he were asleep again. I doubted he was, though, because I was smarter about knowing when he was faking shit now.

All the waiting and nerves had me down to half-mast, but I was all keyed up and it wouldn’t take much to get me back to hardness, back to the edge. I took a deep breath and palmed myself through my sweats. I closed my eyes and thought of Delilah’s nice naked breasts, but all I could hear in my head was Niko’s breath shuddering in the darkness. It wasn’t long before through my sweats wasn’t enough and I worked my hand under the waistband of my sweatpants and underwear. _Much_ better, and clenched my teeth shut on a happy groan.

At the same time, I was just waiting for Niko to kick me out of the bed - maybe literally. He was in fact capable of that, as much as he threw me around when we sparred.

But he didn’t move, a solid warmth against my back, as I worked up to the edge and then paused to back off, breath short and shallow.

Then I rolled over.

I paused for a moment with my fingertips resting against the back of Niko’s arm, laid along his ribs, having those last minute doubts which didn’t go away at all when I realized Niko was holding his breath.

_Fuck._

Then I slipped my hand under his arm, working my way across his chest, and he exhaled and that blew away all those doubts. Even through his thin T-shirt I could feel the raised line of scarring from where Hob had cut him, thin and hard against my palm where it settled over his heart: and already his pulse was way too fast for anything resembling sleeping.

And when I nuzzled my face against the back of his neck, his breathing hitched and tension sang through him. I rolled my hips, pleasure zinging up my spine, and pressed my lips to the nape of his neck, open-mouthed, and felt his heartbeat jump up another notch. (Did Promise ever kiss the back of his neck? Did he react just the same if she did?) The same old soft catch of breath as I remembered, my lips against his skin, the scent of arousal starting musky against the smell of his clean skin. I rocked my hips again, just that close to coming, and Niko did something I _definitely_ never remembered him doing before.

He set a foot against the mattress and pushed his hips back against mine as I came forward, and _hell_ but did that feel _good,_ unexpected feedback, and I couldn’t catch the groan that hung in my throat, grinding up against his ass as I rode out the orgasm, breath hot against the back of his neck.

Christ.

Pulling my brain back out of the afterglow, I leaned in and this time added a quick flick of tongue, tasting the salt on his skin, as Niko shifted, pulled his arm up to bite his wrist, other hand working its way down. I knew a hell of a lot more about teasing than I had years ago, but there was one other thing I knew: there was no way in hell could I use half of it, because I didn’t want to imagine the kind of shit I’d start if I left a fucking _hickey_ on my older brother’s neck.

Promise’d probably kill me.

If Niko didn’t get there first.

His heart under my hand was hammering against his ribs before I lifted it, wrapped my fingers around his forearm, and pulled.

I wanted to see if I could, if he’d still be silent even without biting his wrist. ~~If he’d let me.~~

A moment’s resistance, and then my fingers slipped down as he moved his arm. Tendons corded under my fingers as his hand braced flat in the sheets, then fisted: fuck, but I could feel the marks his teeth had left, deeper than I’d thought they’d be.

He shifted against me as I traced the shape of the bite, and now every breath had the faintest voice in the back of it. Not exactly a moan, not exactly a gasp, but a faint underscoring to every breath, in and out. I scraped my teeth lightly over the curve of his spine, and he shuddered, a groan low in the base of his throat. I did it again, because I’m a little fucking shit like that (and I liked the sound) and his hips jerked hard.

Holy fucking _hell_ , but the _noise_ he made when he came…

If I hadn’t already gotten off, I might have just from hearing _that._

His hand fisted in the sheets relaxed, and after a moment of leaning against him, shocked - God but that was definitely _not_ a sound I was going to forget soon - I rolled over again, my back to his.

Niko sighed, and I fell asleep listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing.

When I woke up, I was all alone in his bed, his smell all around me. I got up, I showered, and when I came out of the bathroom he ambushed me.

Looked like it was martial arts training before breakfast, and God, those days always _sucked_. At least it wasn’t running in the park before breakfast, I fucking hated vomiting on an empty stomach.

Normal everyday life.

Except some nights, I went and shared Niko’s bed.

A week, a month, another week, five days, three weeks...off and on, with no real pattern, and Niko went on dates with Promise and stayed over some nights, and I bitched at Goodfellow about not getting laid, and Goodfellow made inappropriate comments, because Robin is inappropriate. Period. Seriously, I’ve never needed to know exactly what a Roman orgy entailed, but I do now, thanks to Robin’s inability to shut up and his fondness for dirty stories.

Don’t get me wrong, Robin is a damned good friend, but some days…

Well.

Life went on as normal, and then Niko’s deadbeat asshole sperm donor showed his ugly fucking face, brought a fucking war machine to the party, and I had a fun family reunion with a long-lost bastard who thought he’d call himself my brother. Oh and I risked killing myself on a hunch, which gave Niko a well-deserved freakout, but we survived. Happily, Kalakos did not. Grimm? Well, I hoped he’d crawled off to die, but I had the feeling I probably wasn’t going to be that lucky. Why? Because I’m _never_ that lucky, my life sucks.

It was about a week after all that mess: I finished brushing my teeth, and went to get into Niko’s bed with him, and that night he surprised me again.

As usual, when I got under the covers, Niko rolled from his stomach to his side, so I could put my back against his. For a minute I just laid there, warming my feet against his ankles, because it was getting damned chilly now with winter setting in.

Tonight was not one of those nights where I’d needed a little porn for jumpstart: it didn’t take but a few strokes before I was good and hard, my toes curling in my socks. I worked at it for a bit, enjoying the pleasure, before I stopped to catch my breath for a moment, getting ready to roll over and up against Niko.

Niko took a deeper breath, and rolled over.

I tensed up, startled, as Niko’s breath filtered through my hair and his hand settled lightly to the curve of my shoulder. His hips up against my ass was the weirdest damn feeling, and he definitely wasn’t limp.

It was a huge change from the usual pattern and I wasn’t sure where he was going with it. Not anywhere too fucking weird, I hoped for a frantic moment, (like this wasn’t weird enough already) then decided I’d listened to Robin’s crazy sex tales way too damn much.

A deeper breath and his hand on my shoulder shifted, palm settling against the back of my shoulder, fingers still curved over my bicep: over the tattoo Kalakos had been so curious about. _Brothers in arms._ The gentlest of pressure, and after a moment I went with it, wondering what the hell he had in mind. Apparently it was for me to shift over onto my stomach, and he moved with me, resting his weight on an elbow. One of his knees settled between mine, his body more off to the side than over me. The edge of his T-shirt dusted over my bare back.

Calloused fingers trailed across my shoulder and skimmed up the back of my neck, sending a shudder running down my spine. God that felt really good, actually, and I could suddenly understand how easy it was to make his breath catch. But he didn’t stop there. He combed his fingers up through my loose hair, moving it away from the back of my neck...and then fisted his hand in my hair. Heel of his hand warm against my scalp, the points of his knuckles riding easy, and he bent and laid a hot open-mouthed kiss right over my spine.

I almost came right off the bed: _fuck_ but I hadn’t expected that, or thought it would feel that good. I worked a hand underneath me, hitching a knee slightly more under me: Niko shifted easily with me, then rolled his hips slowly. It felt weird but I had a hand around my dick and it wasn’t weird enough to turn me off. Niko mouthed at my neck, paused to breathe, then _fucking hell_ added a low sucking kiss at the base of my neck.

If he gave me a _goddamn hickey_ I was going to fucking _kill_ him.

My outraged writhe didn’t get me very far but felt pretty damn good, my hips grinding against the mattress, and Niko let off before he sucked a bruise there. A shift of his hand in my hair moved my head, but he was careful and how he was gripping, his hand close against my scalp, meant the pull didn’t really hurt. I wasn’t sure I liked it a lot, but hell I wasn’t gonna complain.

Especially not when he scraped his teeth over my skin...but apparently that was only teasing, because he shifted again and fucking _bit_ me.

I couldn’t help the startled curse that hissed past my lips, body jerking. He held the bite for a moment, dull pressure of his teeth along the line of muscle where neck and body met, then let go, breath fast and hot beside my ear.

Delilah had been really fond of biting, but she’d drawn blood half the damn time and I’m actually not much of a fan of pain during sex unless I’m really close to coming. This? Hadn’t been anything like that: calculated and precise and that was all Niko. I rocked my hips back against his and he groaned, dropped his head and trailed a series of kisses interspersed with nips down my neck, and each touch of teeth was electric down my spine. Fuck but it wasn’t going to take me long at all tonight to get off.

Somehow we both finished at almost the same time, and I swear it was Niko’s cry right beside my ear that pushed me over the edge. _God_ that was more fucking erotic than any sound I’d ever heard in a porno, and I’ve watched a hell of a lot of porn.

His grip on my hair released and his fingers slid free, dusting the back of my neck, sending a shiver through me. He eased onto his side, his thigh still across one of mine, and reached for the tissues on the bedside table.

The reason he kept them there? Clean up. They’d only appeared after we’d started this again. Because Niko was a neat freak and actually cared about details like that. He finished, dropped the tissues in the trash can by the bed, and rolled over onto his stomach again. I felt the bed shift and could picture exactly the motion of him sliding a hand under his braid, at the back of his neck, and flicking it up to drape over the pillow. The end made a bristly thump against the wall. He did that whenever we slept together so neither of us rolled over on it in the night. (Because accidentally pinning Niko to the bed by his hair was a great way to get shoved off the damn bed.)

It took me a minute, heavy against the sheets and enjoying the afterglow, to follow his example of cleaning up. I rolled onto my back, shoulder resting against his. It didn’t take me more than a minute to drop off.

Now call it fucked up or stupid, either one, but I did I think for one minute about the implications? You can bet your last dollar I fucking didn’t. It was almost two months before it happened again, but that wasn’t because I’d been weirded out or anything. Just...hadn’t happened. Though I will tell you that when I did get into Niko’s bed that night, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. But after a little bit, it became clear we’d gone back to the old pattern, because he didn’t roll over. So I did.

I figured out one thing that night: biting Niko didn’t just make him groan. It made him cry out, sharp and short, and fucking _squirm._ Apparently it really did it for him, go fucking figure. I was really damn careful, though, and for the same reason I wasn’t about to leave a hickey.

Death by angry vampire, or death by mortified older brother.

Jeopardy daily double and I will take neither of those options, Alex.

I did try out the new position but it didn’t work too well for me, being shorter than Niko. I couldn’t get a good angle and ended up beating off solo. That wasn’t the only time I tried it, and eventually I got it worked out, but that was later. After a few months, I think. Yeah, it was the one week we did twice in a week. Usually I waited longer, but I can’t remember why I didn’t that time.

I did wonder, though, what Niko had told Promise, if anything. He was still dating her, still slept over at her place a few nights out of the month. We didn’t ever talk about it, and to be honest I didn’t want to talk about it. It was something that happened in the dark and quiet and felt like it didn’t belong in the daylight. I knew it was weird, too, there’s a lot of fucking taboo over incest. Not to mention if Robin overheard we would _never_ hear the end of all the innuendo, God.

But at the same time I knew it wasn’t the norm, I also didn’t really think about putting a stop to the whole thing. I felt a little guilty about Niko and Promise, but it wasn’t like this was actual sex or anything.

Hey, look, I’m pretty damn good at denial, okay? Have to be when you’re part murderous monster wanting to live a halfway normal life.

Well halfway normal gets screwed over pretty quick when you have ex-angel serial killers after your ass for a revenge spree. God, Springheel Jack really fucked Nik up. Repression, thy name is Niko, and trauma’s never easy to fucking work out, especially when it comes with a whole new set of kidnappings and half-killings and your little brother in mortal danger. He did the thing where he’d stand at the door and watch me sleep for months after that.

At least, the nights I slept by myself, he did.

The first time I slipped into his bed after that, instead of his hand fisted in the sheets it was curled over mine at his heart. Just that one touch, and that was all. Until the week after, when we’d both settled back into our everyday routine a hell of a lot better, and then he surprised me again.

It was the usual routine, at first. I got myself started, and rolled over, and had spent several minutes teasing us both with a much slower pace than usual (hey, I _do_ know the meaning of ‘slow’, it’s just not my favorite) before Niko shook things up. I’d just paused from nipping along his spine, leaning back to breathe and remember not to do it too hard or it'd leave marks. Niko took a deeper, shuddery breath and rolled over.

I flinched back, startled, and for a moment our gazes met, his pupils blown wide in the dim. ~~It’s never wholly dark in the city.~~ Then his eyes hooded, and his fingers skimmed up my arm before pausing at the nape of my neck.

I didn’t even think: just tipped my head back a fraction into the touch, natural as breathing.

His fingers curled in my hair, grip pulling my head back. As he hitched himself closer, his knee slid between mine, but before I could get too far down the hysterical track of _is it gay if our cocks touch_ (yes despite us both wearing pants) his teeth grazed the edge of my jaw. The touch shocked through me and curled my toes and his breath rushed hot over my ear: hell of an awkward angle for him as he dropped an open-mouthed kiss in the hollow of my throat but God I couldn’t have cared less at that moment. A quick fierce sucking bite and my fingers clenched in his shirt. Just a second of it, nowhere near long _enough_ but it wouldn’t leave a mark, dammit all to hell that was just fucking _teasing_ and had me squirming. Shit that’d been really unfair to him, all this time...

He shifted his knee between mine and...yeah okay, that angle could work, yeah. That worked, and I rolled my hips as Niko worked his way down the tendon in my throat, arousal coming back full force and then some. I might catch a crick in my neck with the way he had my head pulled back but fuck if I cared, fingers twisting in Niko’s T-shirt when he bit me over the knob of my collarbone, Jesus _Christ_ but it was right on the edge of actually hurting without crossing the line, how the hell did he have the self control to _know_?

But that was Niko to a fucking T, even with his breath hard and fast and his heart racing against his ribs he had the fucking presence of mind to not once actually use his teeth hard enough to hurt. Even when he actually fucking came in the middle of a bite, the noise he made muffled against my neck, and I’d already finished but hell if that didn’t curl my toes again, a shiver running through me.

He let go and rolled over onto his back, and for a moment we just laid there, breathing in the dark. Some of the places he’d nipped felt sore but nothing that wouldn’t go away.

It wasn’t until that afternoon that I found it, happened to catch it in the mirror as I was changing shirts. I stopped, leaned closer: right underneath my collarbone was small oblong bruise.

I only realized I’d spat a curse when Niko called down the hall to ask what what wrong.

I jumped and snatched my shirt on in a hurry, electrified by the idea he might come ask and see the damn thing, and shouted back it was nothing.

I _almost_ fucking said it, but chickened out with the words on the tip of my tongue: _“You left a goddamn hickey, jerk!”_

But we didn’t talk about it and I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the first one to bring it up. No fucking way.

I fully intended to keep a shirt on until the bruise went away, but being the fucking idiot I am, I forgot about it. Two days later I took my wringing wet shirt off after a spar. I remembered the hickey at the exact moment Niko saw it: he actually twitched and looked away before resuming his usual commentary on things I could improve. Which was a lot, hand to hand is not my best skill and never has been. But that reaction was enough to let me know exactly how he’d felt about it.

That night I pushed him facedown on the mattress and bit him as hard as I dared and for once, for goddamn once he came before I did, fingers white-knuckled in the sheets, shoulders bowed under me.

He didn’t usually outlast me by long, but he almost always did. I didn’t give it much thought then, vaguely assumed it was because he didn’t usually start beating off until after I’d started things. Looking back, I’m not sure it wasn’t deliberate. His self control was insane, and it would be just like him to do that. To wait until whoever he was with was satisfied, then take care of himself.

How do I know, you ask? Well guess what: racial memory is hella fucked up, and humans aren’t really meant to have it, because remembering past incarnations of yourself and your brother gets really fucking weird really damn quick. Because we weren’t always brothers, or siblings at all, though that was the most common. We weren’t the first set of siblings to get freaky with eachother, which was kind of a relief, but also proved to me we were probably just plain fucked up. I still haven’t decided which is weirder, the dream-memories of sex where Niko’s the girl with her heels dug into my back, or me flat on the sheets with my thighs wrapped around his hips. Fucking hell but do you know how freakin’ _fucked up_ it is to wake up and wonder where the hell your boobs are before you remember you’re a guy and have been all your life? God but my life _sucks_.

Well, before the whole ‘yeah reincarnation is real’ gig really set in, Grimm came back for the final fucking showdown. And Niko and I set ourselves up to die. And we did. For a few minutes, we did. Only Robin wouldn’t give up on our asses and had Rafferty fucking _bring us back to life_.

I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules but I think Robin rewrote them, Trickster that he is.

So we died. And then we weren’t dead.

That first night was so fucking surreal. We spent it drinking with Robin and talking about being reincarnated and shit. It was….well probably the weirdest night of my life, I’ll be honest. Nothing’s topped it yet.

But if I make it through this time-travelling insanity alive, it just might.

Anyway.

The first night back in our apartment, as we were taking off our coats and boots, Niko stopped, standing really close, and the look in his eyes I didn’t know how to interpret. All I knew was whatever words were hanging behind his lips were ones I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear...again? So soon? But he said nothing, swallowed them down and walked away, after a brief touch of his hand at the back of my neck, like always.

I was half-expecting it, that night, when I slipped under the covers, that Niko would roll over to face me.

He did, and the careful tracing of his fingers up my arm was almost familiar, just like the slightest pause at the back of my neck before his fingers slid into my hair. But his grip was loose, and he only tipped my head a little. I was trying to figure out what he had in mind when he leaned closer and his breath brushed my lips. I froze when I realized he was about to fucking kiss me.

But he didn’t move, just like how his hand paused before curling into my hair. Waiting. A heartbeat, two, in the darkness, and still he didn’t move, holding his breath. Then I leaned into his hand.

He sighed and closed the gap, lips dry and chapped against mine, before his fingers curled against my scalp and he changed the angle, tip of his tongue tracing my lower lip.

Kissing Charm had been awkward, because I’d never done it before, but she’d been patient and I’d figured out the basics. Kissing Delilah? Like a fight, hungry and desperate. This? It was almost like a fight but only in the way Niko could fight: precise, exacting, and _intense_. He tasted like mint toothpaste, the whole of it clear and focused and cool like a sunbeam through glass. God.

Forehead against mine and he drew back just an inch, a shared breath swirling between us. The rest of me tuned in to let me know my libido was definitely on board with this development, despite my initial doubts, and my hand was fisted in Niko’s shirt collar….which was probably why he hadn’t moved any farther away, and why when he tried he didn’t get far at all, collar tight against his neck.

And when I pulled him back down and caught his mouth with mine he went with it easy as breathing.

* * *

 

Not a month later, my world got blown to hell.

And it was all gone, not a single word ever said about it, and I’m so fucked up I can’t figure out why or how or even what was the damned point of it all.

All I know is if I think too long on how much I miss him I’ll never get back up again.

But to _fix_ this, to fucking get him _back_ , I’ve got to get up and keep going. I can’t stop now. I can’t.

When the younger version of Niko woke me up to keep me from dreaming too deeply, I almost pinned him against the wall to kiss him. Almost. Instead I shuffled to my feet. God I was so tired.

“Robin in the other room?” I whispered. I didn’t have to ask, I knew, I could smell him there.

“Yes,” Niko answered, grave and quiet and watchful, and fuck but it hurt. Too much a reminder of what I’d lost. “Why?”

“Gonna talk to him,” I answered, and padded down the hall of Robin’s safehouse to the bedroom. Of course he was asleep in bed, creature of comfort that he was, and I shut the door behind me. He sat up as I crossed the floor in the dimness and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Cal?”

“I need a favor,” I said.

“More than you’ve already asked?” Robin returned, but it was teasing, and when I didn’t answer he followed it with a much more sober, “Cal, what is it?” And that was Robin at his wisest, ancient and grave and immeasurably kind even after all his grief.

I didn’t know how he did it, how he could stand it: I was bitter and angry with my own grief, ready to burn the whole fucking world down for revenge.

I turned, put a knee on the bed, and leaned in. Robin made a soft surprised sound when I kissed him.

Robin bragged to anyone who could hear - and even those who couldn’t - about his sexual prowess and expertise. It was a helluva kiss. But I also had the impression he was being very, very careful and I guess I fucking deserved that, especially when I realized I had tears on my face. I put my head on his shoulder and laughed, shaky and not entirely sane. Robin put an arm around my shoulders.

It hadn’t been anything close to kissing Niko.

And I had known that, I realy had, before I’d even started.

“Cal?”

“I slept with Niko.”

Robin contemplated this a moment, his hand smoothing over my shoulder. “In the platonic sense?”

“In the fucking Biblical sense, you asshole.”

“Ah. I’d wondered.” I wondered what the hell I’d said or done to give it away, but before that panic could really set in, Robin added: “As often as the two of you had been lovers, through your lifetimes, I wondered, but I wasn’t going to ask in front of yourself, so to speak.”

“Thanks.” I thought about lifting my head off his shoulder, but moving seemed impossible. I was so tired. “Woulda said no anyway. We never fucking talked about it. Ever.”

“Well yes, other people tend to take a dim view on-”

I cut him off. “No, I mean, we never talked about it to anyone. Not even eachother. Not a goddamn word, the whole damn time.”

“That is a bit odd. Why not?” He had to know he was using his gentle voice, the one that made him sound ancient and sad, a friend for so very very long.

I tried to explain it to him, and ended up telling him more than I’d meant, but as often as he’d played the TMI game with me then I guess turnabout was fair play, right? I fumbled for words and tried to define it, this thing between me and Niko we’d never actually acknowledged, much less named, and I wasn’t sure if I was successful. I felt like I just talked in a circle and got confused. I stopped and Robin’s hand was smoothing up and down my back, my head still on his shoulder, the room dark and his musky green scent all around me.

A horrible thought struck me. “Fuck, Robin, we never...I never asked if he was _okay_ with it, I mean, what he was just going along-“

Robin put his hand over my mouth. I stopped, and then I bit him, because what the fucking hell did he think he was doing?

He shook his hand out with a muttered curse, arm still draped over my shoulders. “Cal. Stop. That’s survivor’s guilt talking.” He curled his hand to my shoulder again. “From what you’ve said, I am very certain Niko did not give you anything that he would not have given if you had asked.”

I grimaced. I wasn’t so sure, now that the thought was planted in my head, uneasy and insidious. “But…”

“No buts. Trust your heart in this. And if you can’t, then trust Niko’s. I am sure that he gave you nothing unwillingly, and would no doubt call you an idiot for even thinking as much.”

Okay, maybe he had a point.

“Now you rest, and in the morning we’ll tackle this assassin.” He patted my back, briskly, and then added in his sly teasing trickster tones: “And get out of my bed and stop tempting me, you tease.”

I did laugh. After I punched his arm. Ass.

* * *

 

I was beginning to wonder how many times I could die and come back to life before the universe called bullshit and offed me for good. Third time was the charm, maybe? I had no fucking clue, and right now I didn’t even want to ask. Right now I was in Robin’s living room, the _right_ Robin’s living room, sitting beside the _right_ version of my brother as Robin made a terrible joke about my tale of fucking up time travel. I snorted my beer and Niko unhelpfully thumped my back with a fist, the wine in his other hand not even rippling.

No I wasn’t going to ask. I was going to enjoy every damn second of what I’d fought so hard for.

Talk wound down and Niko went to take his wine glass to the kitchen. He had a late date with Promise tonight, and it had been just long enough I could probably sleep while he was gone and not stay awake in a panic over whether or not he’d be killed the moment I turned my back.

When I came into the kitchen behind him I tripped over my own feet. He turned from where he’d just set his glass into the sink and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Surely you’re not drunk on two beers.”

“I’m not a cheap date. These are damn expensive beers,” I shot back, moving to throw the empty bottle in the trash under the sink. Normally I didn’t give a damn but I was in a good enough mood to actually try to mind the manners Niko kept trying to hammer into my hard skull. (Okay and maybe it was a little guilt for being such a shitty little brother.)

“Are you sure? They smell like cheap beer,” Niko returned, amusement in his voice as our shoulders brushed.

I straightened even as I answered: “Sure doesn’t taste….cheap….” I trailed off as I realized he had moved, but not away.

He leaned down, and one hand was half-raised, fingers curled. The spine-tingling realization hit my brain only when a single curled knuckle nudged my chin.

He was offering to kiss me.

Right here in Robin’s kitchen, all the lights on. Not in the dark.

Not waiting for me to start it all.

He paused, gaze hooded, and I leaned forward and closed the gap.

God, _God_ I’d missed this. I’d fucking held off on creeping into his bed so far, like it had been some kind of bad luck charm that had caused me to lose him. I knew it was dumb but I’d just...fuck if I know, I was still trying to make sense of it all. We still hadn’t talked about it. Not a word, not a touch, no fucking acknowledgement. Nothing.

Not until this.

He didn’t taste like beer: he tasted like red wine, sharp and tart-sweet as I chased the taste of it around his mouth with my tongue. All that dedicated focus, crisp response, it was all just _Niko_ and that was all.

All that mattered.

But eventually I had to come up for air. It was the weirdest feeling in the world to open my eyes and find out it wasn’t dark and we were both standing up. I found he was leaning back on the counter, hands braced behind him, and I was leaning against him, my hands over his, fingers tangled.

He leaned back just a little, and I caught the teasing curl of his lips before he whispered close enough for me to feel the puff of it against my cheek: “Cheap beer.”

 _Oh my fucking God_.

I couldn’t help the laugh as I reared back and punched his shoulder. “Asshole.”

There was a small, true smile on his lips, rarest of all, and his grey eyes glittered as he caught my punch and his dusky fingers lightly menaced a nerve pinch: my hand only tingled numb for a few seconds. “Perhaps,” he answered, voice warm and fond, and cupped his hand to the back of my neck for a moment before he went to get his coat. “You can chastise me in the morning when I get home.”

“Sure, I’ll stay up all night planning my speech,” I called after him, and got myself another beer after I heard the door close behind him.

I dropped onto the couch next to Robin. “Don’t tell Promise, please.”

I’d smelled him in the doorway. He’d seen and thank whatever deity was listening he hadn’t interrupted. I’m not sure if me or Niko or both might’ve dropped dead on the spot in embarrassment. Fuck.

“You don’t think Niko’s told her?” Robin asked instead, scratching under Salome’s chin as she lay across his lap like a hairless scarf of death.

“Fuck, I don’t know, and I’m not asking.” I wasn’t even going to think about it. Yup, back to denial. Hey, it was my favorite coping method, thanks.

Robin hummed a contemplative note. “Still haven’t talked about it?”

“Nope.” I sipped my beer.

Robin chuckled a little. “Well. Maybe in the morning your speech can include your touching concerns about consent, though I hope the fact that _he_ instigated that kiss would settle that for you.”

I eyed my beer bottle, then Robin. “If I shoved this up your nose, would you shut up?”

His grin turned lascivious. “Perhaps if you put it somewhere _else_ I might-“

I threw the damn bottle at his head to cut him off. Fuck that.


End file.
